Another night, another feast

As Kirith said, PVP is sometimes feast, sometimes famine. Two nights ago we had a famine: an enemy roam much too strong for our team roamed our space, and there wasn’t much we could do except for our bombers to give it a shot every now and then. But yesterday was quite a different day.. Unfortunately I 'wasn't there' for the whole thing as family matters kept interrupting me, but I witnessed enough for a bare bones battle report.

Early in the EU TZ evening, a small gang of 10 or so LEGIO pilots joined up and went looking for trouble in CVA territory in Providence. It’s not too far from our home in Catch, and usually makes for some nice pvp. I didn’t have the time to commit to a roam, but listened in on TeamSpeak anyway: the guys seemed to have fun, trying to catch ratters and miners in D-GMTI and surroundings but no kills were made, although it was a close call a couple of times. After a while the guys  had enough and turned around to head back home.

But they were not alone.. around 15 CVA pilots formed up in response to our roam, and they pursued our fleet all the way back to our home area. CVA was lagging our fleet by a jump or five, so it wasn’t exactly a hot pursuit, and we knew well in advance what was coming. This is where I had to go away from keyboard, but when I got back about 20 minutes later, CVA was already in system.

What had happened while I was away, was that several more LEGIO pilots joined the original roam: both teams were now at similar strength, numbers wise. We had logis and ECM on field too, as did the enemy. To CVA, it would have looked like a fight between comparable forces. But what CVA didn’t know, was that a sizeable Cascade Imminent fleet (blue to us, hostile to CVA) was only three jumps out. And they knew what was about to happen.. and were ready to join us at a moment’s notice. And that’s precisely what happened! CVA jumped into our home system, LEGIO engaged them.. and after half a minute or so dozens of blues pile in. Local spikes to around 100 pilots, several CVA ships go down quickly, the rest burns out of of the bubble and warps to safes. CVA loses a Scimitar, a handful of Drakes and a pod. Nothing dramatic, but it's a lot of logi and dps to lose while stranded in enemy territory.. GF’s are said in local and a few CVA remain, scattered here and there.

Yet there’s more non blues in local. Just before the CVA fleet arrived, an Agony Empire roam also paid a visit to our home system. coming in from a different direction. Apparently shocked and/or confused by the large numbers of pilots of different alliances coming and going in local, they didn’t hang around too long: after the CVA brawl began, they went for the gate, back to where they came from. Cascade Imminent pilots joins ours in the hunt for these neutrals, warping from one gate to another, catching an Eris interdictor at the gate. It is quickly destroyed. The remaining Agony pilots are now scattered as well; one Cheetah slips past a gate camp, another one escapes to another system.. they end up with less than ten pilots, spread over two or three different systems. Over the course of the next hour and a half, our team manage to catch two other Agony ships, first a one billion Loki and then a Deimos. Around this time I join the party again, but unfortunately nothing happens anymore, even though we’re eagerly awaiting a hostile roam that was supposed to be inbound. After fourty minutes I log off again and go to bed.

I don’t know yet what happened later this night, but this morning our killboard shows another couple of Agony kills, a few hours later: an Enyo and a Rokh battleship. To top it off, apparently we also scored a few kills against BrushieBrushieBrushie - an alliance that has been 'trolling' us, by their own words.

Even though I didn't get to participate much, yesterday was clearly a feast to many LEGIO pilots!

Two Titans

Whether Titans should be nerfed or not I do not know, but when I encountered these two humongous ships,  a (Minmatar) Ragnarok and an (Amarr) Avatar yesterday, I was duly impressed.. Enjoy the view!

And, see that little ship under the Avatar..? It's a carrier, a Thanatos. Looks tiny when compared to the Titans, does it not?

Jita cam - the proposal

I know this has been discussed before, but I'd like to mention it once again: the Jita cam. Between the matches of the last Alliance Tournaments, CCP streamed a live view of the undock area of one of the busiest trading stations in Eve Online, as a backdrop for the commentators discussing those matches. Many pilots enjoyed the view! All sorts of ships coming and going, piloted by real players going about their business (literally, often); occassionally you would see laser fire.

I would really like to have this as a permanent live cam! It could be a nice screensaver, it could be displayed on a tv, or be used as a backdrop for Eve Radio. It would certainly beat my mother's fireplace DVD (it has a special feature, an interview with the director.. go figure)

It would be even better if the Jita Cam would change positions every now and then. Stations in trade centers such as Jita, Amarr, Dodixie, Oursulaert, Rens, Hek, or the busiest star gates along the trade routes between them, could provide enough interesting scenery.

But let's take this one step further. From a technical point of view, I'm not sure what's required to produce the imagery, but I imagine it requires in game recording: something (a ship?) needs to be in game, in the camera position in order to acquire the images being transmitted. If that is true, couldn't that ship move? What if the stream could be hooked up to a Polaris frigate, piloted by an ISD volunteer? CCP is often aware of large battles about to take place (for instance because it has been reported in order to have the server hardware node reinforced in time); wouldn't it be interesting if Jita cam could provide live imagery of these battles? This was more or less done when CCP pilots staged their own 'incursion' in November 2011, which ended in a battle near Tama; live footage of the event was broadcasted via eve radio, where it can still be viewed.

Ideally there would be a few 'streaming enabled' clients available to CCP and/or designated ISD volunteers. CCP would stream either a live feed of the aforementioned undock areas of the busiest stations in New Eden, the traffic at star gates, or if possible live footage of ongoing battles. Prerecorded visuals of interesting locations in New Eden, and reruns of previously acquired imagery of interest could also be used.

From experience I've learned not to say "it can be done easily, and it's cheap!" when it comes to implementing new ICT related stuff, but I'm sure it can be done in this case. I'm just not sure about the cost, and of course there has to be a benefit to CCP as well. That benefit is probably in the area of marketing: it would allow CCP to advertise live, dynamic content (scenery, events) from within New Eden, to those outside of it. Of course Youtube clips offer somewhat the same, but those are often player made and CCP doesn't have much control over how Eve Online is presented in those.

Knowing the Eve Online player base, I'm pretty sure there would be some entertaining 'emergent gameplay' surrounding these camera vantage points or ISD reporter ships, too. What would be more cool than to have your kill recorded by the ISD Jita Cam operator! Or attempt to kill that operator, of course :)

Anyway, did I mention I'm volunteering for the position of ISD Jita Cam operator..? I'd happily spend time flying around New Eden (in a Polaris frigate of course) to gather the footage :-)

An unhappy pilot

“There’s two level of paranoia: total and insufficient” (Dave Kern, IBM, at a conference in 2006)

As I have mentioned on this blog earlier, No Fixed Abode (NOFAD) is currently recruiting. For the first time we are running an open channel (No Fixed Channel) and it’s quite interesting to see who drops by! One of those who contacted us there has joined NOFAD a short while later; in the past weekend he has scored more kills than I usually do in a month (..or two). A good start! There were time zone issues with a few other potential members, one of which I knew from the blogs and tweetfleet, and another one was referred to an US TZ corp in our alliance.

An interesting thing happened last Friday, when our open channel’s member list suddenly listed a pilot with a negative standing. A guy from a hostile alliance, trying to join us..? We struck up a conversation, trying to get an idea of what was going on. He related his tale: he had been a mercenary or pirate for most of his Eve career, resulting in a current security standing of -8. His employment history was very, very long, although for the past year he’d mostly been in two corps, hopping from one to another and back again a few times, apparently for deployment reasons. His alliance does a lot of dirty jobs, deploying all over the cluster to execute contracts, harassing or griefing here and there. This often required redeploying on short notice, mandatory operations et cetera. He had also done his fair share of infiltration and spying, something he confessed forthright.

But after years of this, he grew tired of it; having a few young kids and a job is not really compatible with that kind of lifestyle. Time to settle down, find a group of like minded guys to talk football and rugby, have a bit of pvp every now and then with a bit of ratting on the side to generate the necessary ISK..

The story above came to light in bits and pieces, over the course of the evening. Frankly I didn’t know what to make of it, but he sounded honest all right. Were we being misled? Is he doing some intricate social engineering on us? We're a small corp in a sov holding alliance and we're recruiting, so we might be a target for infiltration. Our older GMT pilots liked the guy, probably because he was so similar to them (football, rugby, beer, wife, kids..). Googling his pilot name I couldn’t find much of interest: some innocuous posts on the forums and lots of killboard entries. He had been largely inactive for about a month or two prior to contacting us, which was uncommon for him (his killboard stats go back years without interruption) but in line with his story. Someone from alliance leadership informed us that the negative standing was caused by a few roams his alliance did through our sov, the previous year; nothing to worry about, really.

Yet, after much deliberation and discussion, his past turned out to be a showstopper. There were objections from alliance leadership and from within NOFAD itself, and in the end we had to decide not to admit him to NOFAD. A shame, really, as I think he would have fit us quite nicely given his age group, family situation and TZ. We informed him and he took it graciously, even though clearly disappointed.

So here we have a pilot with 70+ million skill points, a killboard efficiency of over 90% - and he can’t find a decent place to stay, as his corp history and security status deny him entrance to most normal (non mercenary or non piracy) alliances. I really feel sorry for him.

Which brings me to the 'lessons learned' part: carefully consider what you do with your main pilot, if you're attached to him or her (that happens, especially when that main is your first avatar of sorts).Whenever you decide to become a mercenary, a pirate, make sure you use a throwaway character for it. Or, be prepared to end up with a highly skilled, but virtually unusable character in a few years time.

Come to think of it, when Jenny Twotone first explained to me, back in 2008, that I shouldn't run too many missions against Caldari, I didn't really understand of believe her - until I had to repair the bad standing towards Caldari and Amarr.. 

In closing, let me say that in my opinion it speaks volumes about the depth of Eve Online, that we're discussing multi year plannings for your character development!

Eggs for breakfast

A few days ago some of us were patrolling the pipe between V-3YG7 and U-QVWD . It is one of the busier parts of the area: we often see traffic from HED-GP to GE-8JV and further to LGK-VP in Stain, or to Curse via 0-SHT. CVA for instance uses O-SHT to enter the Catch region when they are looking for PVP, so you might say it’s a lively neighbourhood.

Anyway, one of our pilots called for help in U-QVWD; an enemy that had been camping one of our systems tried to leave the area via that route, and our pilot was trying to hunt him down. A couple of us switched ships and headed that way asap. Pretty soon however it became clear we weren’t going to catch this red: he was cloaked somewhere in system. Right about that moment, we noticed a neutral pod coming down the pipe. I believe we tried to catch it but failed, as a pod is usually fast to warp. You really need a bubble if you want to have a good chance at catching them. And then another one came.. and another one..

At the same time our intel channel lit up with requests to bubble the gates in V-3YG7 or the system behind it, B-3QPD . Soon enough we found out why! A mixed gang of enemies, consisting of CVA and allies, had gotten a beating at the hands of a Cascade Imminent (FAIL) and Against All Authorities (-A-) fleet. The surviving pilots tried to get out of Catch as soon as possible.. through the pipe we were camping.

We bubbled the V-3YG7 gate in B-3QPD, and just sat there waiting for the pods to come through. It was a weird experience.. one by one we cracked the eggs, whose pilots must have been cursing behind their screens. Your pod, pointed, scrammed and webbed in a bubble, in hostile territory, with a dozen enemy ships locking on to you.. At one point a dozen or so enemy ships jumped in and started shooting my Drake, so I burned out of the bubble and warped off. Just when I hit warp, part of the the FAIL/-A- fleet that was pursuing them entered and destroyed what was left of them. And back to the turkey shoot we went. An alliance mate who just logged onto TeamSpeak was informed of what we were doing, and he remarked.. 'Ah, so you guys are having eggs for breakfast!'

Longtime LEGIO pilots particularly enjoyed the evening, as LEGIO and CVA have a history. Once allies, now bitter enemies: there's little love lost between oldtime LEGIO pilots and CVA.

In the end, we killed about nice pods and some ships. Could have been more, but of course FAIL and -A- took their share as well, plus we missed a few pods when they first started to come through. Best catch of the evening: this one billion pod. Thanks CCP for showing implants on killmails!

"Recruitment is open.."

No Fixed Abode is still a small corporation. We have a dozen active members, a few alts and a few inactives, all in all less than 20 pilots on the member list. We are a group of old friends, and most of us will probably be playing eve in the foreseeable future, but still: some growth would be beneficial, and perhaps necessary if we want to remain a viable corporation in the long run. You will lose people, one way or another, so you need new corp members every now and then. 

Forums, Corp recruitment
So recently, I have been looking at recruitment. Whom to contact, whom to offer a position? Whom can I ask without endangering the relation with their current CEO or corp? It hasn’t been easy, as many corps we once had friends in have gone dormant in 2011. 

 

Yesterday I posted an advert via the Corporation menu in the Eve client. The text space is limited, so I had to be brief in my description of No Fixed Abode ("we shoot reds, rats and ‘roids"), assigned corp colleagues Alexander Weitgereist, CEO Dadellus myself as recruitment officers and listed our open No Fixed Channel as recruitment channel. I wonder how many prospective pilots get to see it, if at all.. there’s no way to see how many hits or reads this kind of advert gets. It will be interesting to see if it draws any responses.

For the past few weeks I have also been reading the Eve Online recruitment forum. What’s notable there: many nullsec and WH corps asking for new pilots, but only a few individuals looking for a corp! If I take a look at the pilots ‘LF’ a new corp and filter out some basic requirements such as a suitable timezone and play style, there remain only a handful of matching applicants for us. Apparently, fresh blood is hard to come by.

"I think we have what you’re looking for!"

Pilots who offer themselves on the recruitment forums, often get a lot of replies. If you’ve read through a handful of them, you’ll notice the same recruitment officers replying again and again to each and every ‘LF corp’ post.  Usually, they paste the same happy “I think we have what you’re looking for!” in every reply, even when their offer clearly doesn’t match what’s being requested. These guys seem to target just about everyone, apparently not very concerned whether the prospective member will be a good fit for their corp. Doesn’t inspire much confidence, does it?

On the other hand, pilots - knowing full well they have a choice, here - aren't shy to post their demands either. Of course they should list their requirements, but some pilots are not above showing a little attitude or arrogance when they do. Of course they'll still be hired because someone really does need them, but I steer clear of these guys. I want to have fun in Eve Online and don't feel like dealing with prima donnas.  

Hard to get

Amusing are the corps who announce they are open for recruitment. Between all the corps vying for new blood on the forums, would the mere, bland announcement ‘..now open for recruitment’ result in a lot of applications? They make it look like they are providing you with a rare opportunity to get in, playing all ‘hard to get’. Perhaps there really are lots of people waiting for just this advert from this specific corp, I don’t know, but I have a feeling many of these posts won’t have much effect.

Where are the new pilots, anyway?

But why is it so difficult to find new pilots in the first place? Corps looking for players in the recruitment forum, tend to be nullsec or WH corps, looking for new PVP pilots. As for WH corps, I understand it can be difficult to attract new pilots. Almost by definition they lead a somewhat secluded life, sneaking in and out of their wormhole, preferably spending their time in lockdown if possible. And how are you going to find new friends if you never meet anyone?

But nullsec corps.. shouldn’t they be overflowing with applicants? It is supposed to be ‘the endgame’ for Eve Online, the goal, the thing to aspire to. Many new pilots get drawn in the game after reading about epic battles involving thousands of pilots, after all. Why, then, are so many nullsec corps struggling to find new members? There must be thousands of pilots languishing in highsec who could really use a stay in nullsec to spice up their Eve life.  

 We all know about the famous learning cliff in Eve Online - many pilots don’t make it past trial or a few months of subscribing. For those who do, moving from PVE dominant highsec to the PVP territory that is nullsec, may be the second barrier to overcome.. And it does seem that many never make it past, given that most Eve players live in highsec. Now there’s a task for CCP! And perhaps the nullsec dominant CSM too: think about ways to get these highsec players to try out nullsec. Could be a nice topic for a blog banter too.

In the mean time.. Yes, No Fixed Abode is ‘open for recruitment’ ;-) Here’s our advert on the forum: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=69235&find=unread. You’re welcome to contact us if you'd like to fly with us!

Alliance and corp survival

I’ll admit, I am getting slightly addicted to Evemaps these days; it's the site with the most accurate information on what’s going on in New Eden in terms of sovereignty, alliances, corps and such. The ebb and flow of the never ending New Eden wars are reflected on evemaps: alliances losing sov and bleeding members while others surge. When an alliance or corp is struggling, evemaps is the place where this becomes mercilessly visible.

Having been part of a failscading powerbloc once, I’m always kind of interested to learn what happens to the corps who leave an alliance. Where do they go? Evemaps, ever helpfully, provides this information in the list of former corps for an alliance: if the departed corps have joined a new alliance, it is visible there.

Surprisingly, if you take a look at that list, many corps never join a new alliance after leaving one. Whether they left their previous alliance on their own accord of were forced out I don’t know; whether that alliance failscaded or just somehow faded (as happens to highsec carebear alliances sometimes) I don’t know either. But the fact remains, that hundreds, if not thousands, of corps (and their pilots!) once were part of an alliance but are now alone.

Take another look at a list of former corps (for instance that of LEGIO) and sort it by member. A new pattern emerges: the largest corps who’ve left LEGIO in the past, have found a new home in another alliance. Many corps who haven’t, currently have single digit membership numbers. And at the bottom, there’s a set of corps who haven’t survived; they are dead. I have checked this for several other alliances, and it’s not always a given, but as a rule of thumb, the bigger corps are more likely to be part of a new alliance when compared with the smaller ones.

I can think of several reasons for this pattern. A corp may lose members when it fails to provide it’s members with access to nullsec, wh space or other lucrative resources or fun activities, for a prolonged period of time; in the end, only a few inactive pilots and a handfull of die hards will remain. Or, when you are already a small corp, it may be more difficult to be accepted into a new alliance, as your size makes it less likely that you’ll provide added value to a new host alliance.

For any pilot involved in corp leadership, there are useful lessons to be learned here. Whenever you find your corp without an alliance, make it a priority to find a new, suitable one as soon as possible (without compromising on the ‘suitable’ part of course). And second: make sure you have enough good, active pilots, in order to provide added value to your (prospective) alliance.

For a regular corp member, there's something to learn as well. If your corp is no longer part of an alliance, and leadership isn't doing their utter best to correct that situation, the long term viability of your corp may be in danger. It would be wise to keep an eye out for alternatives.

Finally, I have - a while ago - checked up on several corps we were once in an alliance with. Most of seem to suffer from a low level of activity, even when they still hold a reasonable membership number. Eve is still a game, and when that game becomes less fun because the alliance or corp isn't functioning well, people will login less too; after a while they will probably unsub. Many of these corps are in a slow decline towards death, taking an unknown number of subscriptions with them.
In this regard, CCP is more or less dependent on the player corps and alliances (overwhelmingly run by well meaning amateurs, I might add) to keep the pilots engaged and active, and hence, CCP's business afloat. What a scary thought..

(2012-01-27 made some small editorial changes; content didn't change - Sered)

Blog Banter 32 - for the children

"This month's Blog Banter comes from Drackarn of Sand, Cider and Spaceships. He has foolishly chosen to poke the hornet's nest that is the non-consensual PvP debate. Whilst you read his question, I'll be finding a safe place to hide.

A quick view of the Eve Online forums can always find someone complaining about being suicide ganked, whining about some scam they fell for or other such tears. With the Goons' Ice Interdiction claiming a vast amount of mining ships, there were calls for an "opt out of PvP" option.

 

Should this happen? Should people be able to opt-out of PvP in Eve Online. Should CONCORD prevent crime rather than just handing out justice after the event? Or do the hi-sec population already have too much protection from the scum and villainy that inhabits the game?"

*update* a list of other blog responses to the queston raised above, can be found at Freebooted.

.................................................................................................................................................................

Raise the price of nonconsensual PVP

After the Goons’ ice interdiction and their recent promise of a much more devastating ‘victory lap’ through highsec, we are again confronted with the question: should CCP do something about nonconsensual PVP? Should it be possible in New Eden to opt out of PVP altogether?

Yes

Eve Online has a reputation of being notoriously difficult. One of the hardest parts to understand - for inexperienced pilots anyway - are the aggression mechanics. This allows older, more experienced pilots to can flip or can bait newbie pilots - or they can resort to just suicide ganking them; that doesn't mean much to the older, more experienced pilot. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I find very little to defend in this practice. It is no sport, it doesn’t require intelligence or courage, it isn’t ‘educating the n00bs’. In my opinion, it’s just griefing, nothing more. There’s no reasonable way a  n00b miner can defend himself against these practices; it’s either accept that you’re being robbed, or lose your ship. 

I know for a fact that these practices have cost CCP subscribers. I have personally known several pilots who ended their fresh subscriptions (or never converted trial to paying subscription) after losing ships this way or hearing about such losses. Heck, if I hadn’t been accepted in a good newbie corp, I would have quit too, after losing my first, hard earned, shiny new Incursus to a griefer.

No

Yet the whole premise of New Eden is, that there is no safety, ever. It is a harsh, cold place and that is by design; it’s not by accident. It remains a single shard sandbox, fraught with danger. CONCORD was not meant to prevent crime there; not easily anyway. Let's not dumb down Eve Online even further, shall we?

Compromise: raise the stakes

Coming from a carebear background, I have a lot of sympathy for my less experienced brethren in highsec. Implementing some extra protection for them does appeal to my sense of fairness - and it would be good for CCP’s baseline as well. Yet I wouldn’t want to fundamentally change New Eden to accomplish it. But I can think of a few measures that would at least level the playing field somewhat.

For instance some extra protection, in the first 12 weeks (or 8, or 10.. please debate) of being a pod pilot. Let's determine a 'graduation age': below that, you're afforded some extra protection, if you're older than that, nothing changes when compared to the situation now. 

After the graduation period ends, the n00b pilot receives a note stating he has completed his basic training and should now be aware of all the dangers out there. The note contains a link to a evelopedia page on piracy, such as this one. No extra protection is now available for the graduated pilot.

So what kind of extra protection am I thinking about? Suicide ganking n00bs is now a very one sided event, as I mentioned above, and I propose to level the playing field somewhat, by making sure the griefer/ganker gets to feel the pain too. The ganker should have to think about his action: is this kill really worth it, or not?  The first step in this direction was removing insurance payout; let's take this line of thought a little further. I propose raising the security status penalties for ship killings under specific circumstances: when the pilot is below the graduation age, and the security status of the system is higher than 0.6 (or 0.5, 0.7.. up for debate), the security standings penalty is significantly raised. Penalties would be stackable: killing a mining vessel in 1.0, piloted by a pilot fresh out of trial, should carry a much more severe penalty than, for instance, killing an eight week old ratter in 0.8. Killing a two week old cyno alt in lowsec or nullsec should not carry (extra) penalties at all.

Added to this - and perhaps this should be implemented for all kinds of highsec ganks, not only for n00b bashing - the offending pilot should feel some real pain: a fine, and doing some jail time seems appropriate. So, no jumping/undocking for at least 24 hours after a suicide gank; ISK fines to you or your corp's wallet. 
I'd like to see some ISK compensation for the victim too, preferrably via the insurance route, but am struggling to find a way that would allow something like that to be implemented without being exploited immediately. Suggestions are welcome..

To prevent gankers from working with throwaway characters: the griefing/ganking character is 'on probation' and can't be biomassed or sold for at least two (four?) weeks. 

To prevent can flipping/baiting, I would simply suggest the ability to set a password on any jettisoned can. Anyone still can baited after that is just lazy and deserves some punishment :)

Pro and con

The upside of this (or a similar) approach would be, that nonconsensual PVP would still be available - but at a much steeper price to the ganker; this would be something you can't do too often before a character (or an account) becomes totally useless.The gank should really be worth it!

A downside is, that it's quite a convoluted system, a tad difficult to understand and implement without making it exploitable somehow. I'm sure, however, that the experienced game devs at CCP have ways around that. 

Another downside; certain high sec areas would - at least for younger pilots -become temporary save havens. They’ll probably flock around the few meager belts available there, without venturing outside too much. Will the youngsters muster the courage to exit the reservation? 

My final concern with any protection measure is: how will the griefers/gankers exploit it to their profit? This is something that needs to be thought of. 

The written word

Earlier this week I published a review of Roc Wieler’s YC113. In the introduction I mentioned that art and creativity wasn’t really a part of the Eve community, except for video. 

I was primarily referring to, of course, the award winning machinima series ‘Clear Skies’. But, there are more well known Eve videos such as the ‘Clarion call’ series by Rooks and Kings alliance  (and the parody Noirion Call) and countless frapsed battle reports on Youtube. Recently, CCP hosted a contest for this kind of content on eveisreal.net , allowing pod pilots to show off their video editing powers.

It takes some imagination and creativity to make these, but wouldn’t go as far as to call them ‘art’. It’s like the difference between a Discovery Channel documentary and a motion picture: both can be well made and entertaining, but in my humble opinion the first one remains a documentary, while the second one can sometimes be called art.

Screenshots of Eve Online are often beautiful, and nicely show how impressive New Eden looks these days. I have often done my best to create a specific snapshot, for instance by positioning all elements in a certain way; I have certainly done some post processing too, cropping, adapting contrast and light/dark levels. Is it creative? Sure. Art? Possibly.

But, I have to confess, I haven’t done justice to the Eve Online community. I have neglected to mention written fan fiction! Kirith Kodachi for instance is well known for his ‘fiction Friday’ series. Several bloggers are using a 'role play' style of writing on their blogs. Eve Travel is a good example; it's a travel guide to landmarks in New Eden. And for a fan fiction/RP styled source of news, you can head over to http://tech4news.org/ . 

There are actually quite a few role players in New Eden, who have fully immersed their in game persona in the background story CCP created. Alliances such as CVA and Ushkra’khan, while perhaps not always 100% ‘in character’ are also RP oriented. Pilots participating in factional warfare – war between the human races in New Eden – are also likely to be interested in or actively enaged in role playing. And let's not forget those real life model citizens who, in Eve Online, pose as fearful space pirates.. Many of these pilots maintain their RP persona on their blogs and twitter feeds.

It is in the written word that the Eve Online community displays a lot of it’s creative powers. I hope that, by pointing this out, I’ve made up for the fact that I have forgotten to mention it in the previous blog post..

YC113: a review

The community is always an important part of a gaming experience. Back when I was (more) active in Second Life, I'd admire the creative works of my fellow avatars, and to this day, really beautiful things are created in the Linden Lab world. Second Life's community is a very creative one!

In Eve Online, there's no such thing as an artist or creator. New Eden knows industry - you can create predetermined things based on fixed blueprints -  but no in world, free format creation of objects. The community discusses game mechanics, killmails, fittings, shiptypes, CCP shenanigans, nerfs and buffs.. but only rarely does art or creativity come into play, with the exception of video. Eve Online may be a sandbox where you can choose your own career, but 'artist' is not high on the list.

That's why was pleasantly surprised to see an Eve Online related work of creativity: Roc Wieler's musical effort YC113, which was released October 1, 2011. After listening to it a few times, I have to say It’s an appealing work of art and well worth a listen to. Musically, I’d characterize it as orchestral, with much drama,  power and bombast: some parts could easily have been part of a soundrack to a grand battle scene in a Lord of the Rings movie. But there’s more than just these grand musical landscapes and vistas; there’s also the intimacy of a lonely piano, a deep sense of sorrow in a single woman’s voice. 

If you’re familiar with New Eden, you will find that all these musical elements fit that sandbox universe in which Eve Online takes place.

Why I play Eve Online (again)

There are many reasons why I continue to play Eve Online: excitement, the whole 'single shard sandbox' thing, friendships forged over the years. Plus, of course, the beautiful scenery..

I encountered this planet when I was creating a safe spot somewhere, all alone in a nullsec system in the Catch region. The new nebula, the gas giant with the rather detailed moon in front of it - I love it. Beautiful work.

In December I somehow didn't feel like playing nullsec eve, and I remained pretty much away for a while. Still, these moods usually pass within a few weeks; this time is no different, and I logged quite a bit of space hours over the past two or three days. Back in the saddle.. feels good. And looks good, to boot!

I started reading The Empyrean Age a few days ago, and am planning to do a writeup on it when I'm finished.

Decapitated pilots

Just a quick note on something I hoped I wouldn't see in Crucible anymore: decapitated avatars! For some reason, parts of the avatar sometimed don't load, with this as the result:

As you can see, the avatar is really hollow; the black and grey background is visible when you look down the neck of this poor decapitated pilot!

 I know that WiS features aren't high on the list these days, but this is something that should be fixed I think, as it defeats the whole purpose of Walking in Stations.

The first taste of Crucible

Yesterday, upon returning from work, the first thing I did: launch Eve Online, to download the latest patch, Eve Online Crucible. CCP was good enough to warn us beforehand about the download size: 1.5GB is quite the patch.. Containing new nebulae and new Captains' Quarters, this wasn't really a surprise but still. I remember people complaining about the 25MB download size for Second Life back in 2006, 2007 and obviously broadband is now much more widespread, but for some of my alliance mates - in civilized countries like Canada - downloading this patch took a few hours. Luckily we have 50 MBps download speeds here, so I had it in 10 minutes or so. Installing went well (on all three PC's I might add) and so far, Crucible has been a smooth ride for me.

I absolutely love the new nebulae (or nebulas?) and the sense of direction in space they provide. Same with the stargates: they now actually point in the direction you're supposed to travel! For a game environment, it all looks and feels surprisingly real. This snapshot for instance shows a regular piece of space, nothing fancy, but it really looks like a picture of our own milky way at night. I didn't think changing the nebulae could enhance the level of immersion, but it does for me.

Speaking of immersion: the new captain's quarters are a good, if incremental improvement over the first (Minmatar) one. And now that the UI allows you to switch easily between hangar and captain's quarters, I find myself using them more, too. A step in the right direction, I'd say. My wife likes them too, as you can see in the snapshot.




Other 'Flying in Space' features I am quickly getting used to: right click on a remote stargate in overview and select 'jump'; warps you to the gate and jumps you through. Very neat. Same with selecting a station from your asset list and select 'destination': autopilot will now bring you to that station and dock you. Again - very useful. The 'loot all' button is a boon when ratting or missioning, less mouse clicks!

Another feature that makes me happy: if your ship does an emergency warp (usually caused by an unintended disconnect from Eve: network failure, power failure, PC crash..) then your drones will attempt to return to the drone bay before your ship warps off. I've lost quite a few drones due to emergency warps, hopefully this will help! Plus, when you forget your drones out there (and who hasn't) the Crucible client will let you reconnect to them once you return to the area you left them in, so they don't get lost that easy.

I realise I'm supposed to sing the praises of the new battlecruisers, but the truth is I haven't had a chance to look at them properly, let alone buy or fly one. And as soon as I get my rusty Dominix out in space for a level 4 mission, I may be able to judge the positive effects of the buff to hybrid turrets; so far no experiences there either. And a myriad of other small fixes I haven't testedyet..

So far, I like Crucible; kudos to CCP for getting this out of the door. 

Alliances fail - but why?

To fail..
Late in 2010, NOFAD was part of Saints amongst Sinners, a 500+ pilot alliance living in Querious in a -1.0 truesec dead end system (in other words - a real sanctum heaven), safely under the umbrella of the IT Alliance. A few months later, under intense pressure from enemies, IT Alliance is all but dead, Saints amongst Sinners lost sov in some of the key systems and is in full retreat to NPC nullsec and lowsec. At that moment, SaS is bleeding members and morale is at a low point. NOFAD initially redeploys to Solitude as ordered (while most alliance members just move to highsec), but the alliance seems to fail and in March 2011 we - reluctantly - leave SaS. Now, not even a year later, SAS has 5 members left; the last real corps left on November 10. Sic transit gloria Mundi and all that.

Or not to fail..
At this moment, NOFAD is part of LEGIO alliance, as part of the Against All Authorities (-A-) ecosystem. We've endured a full on assault from DRF, lost sov, lost a few corps. Several NOFAD members, with the memories of SaS's failure still fresh, didn't think LEGIO would survive. It was all too familiar! Deja vu, been there done that.. However, NOFAD decided to stay with LEGIO,as we don't want to be one of those corps that leaves at the first sign of trouble; NOFAD is committed to the alliance it joins. So we redeployed to LGK-VP as ordered, and tried to make the best of it. In the weeks that followed, the red wave crashed over Catch and then - slowly - retreated, and while we might not be out of the woodwork yet, it seems we'll survive. -A- did not fail cascade, and neither did LEGIO.

..that is my question
I'm still digesting what has happened, trying to come up with an explanation as to why SaS failed and LEGIO didn't, under roughly comparable circumstances. First, I'm looking at some external factors, and then we'll take a look at what happens within the alliances.

External
IT Alliance died; Against All Authorities didn't. That's one big factor, right there. As soon as IT Alliance was no longer able to defend Querious and Delve, the whole ecosystem (intel channels, ship replacement factories, jb network, supporting supercap fleet etc) collapsed. SaS was on it's own, and under those circumstances unable to defend it's space. Against all Authorities didn't die, they just retreated to Stain as they'd done before, and survived even though they lost some (important) corps. The -A- ecosystem survived and continued to support the alliances, corps and pilots belonging to it. An important difference I think.

Internal - leadership
For it's day to day operations, SaS heavily relied on it's CEO, Felix Sidius. Pretty much nothing got done without him, and his alts did much of the hauling too. Felix is a friendly, nice guy; I don't think he likes to say 'no' and for such a fast growing alliance, there were just too many tasks in his hands. Perhaps he should have delegated more than he did? And then, at the critical 'make or break' time when SaS suffered, he became a father for the first time, too! Obviously that did put some strain on his ability to be online and lead the alliance :) So even though Felix did his utter best under the circumstances, (in my opinion) the leadership structure of SaS was not mature enough to withstand the pressure we were under at that time.
LEGIO, on the other hand, has a much more diverse leadership. The CEO, Urkrathos Ulnor, without doubt calls the shots, but much of the practical management work (forum permissions, ts permissions, web site mgmt etc) is done by Scozzy. Still others run the mining/industry division and other separately defined parts of the organisation. All in all, there's much more shared responsibility, strenght and flexibility (and hence coherence, too) in LEGIO as an organisation, than there ever was in SaS.

Ironically, pretty much the same goes for IT Alliance versus -A-. IT Alliance, while not completely run by SirMolle, was definitely his, while -A- doesn't rely on one such figurehead. Perhaps a warning to all those alliances out there that do rely on one strong leader!

Internal - the pilots
Of course you can't blame a failure on just the leadership. It's also up to the pilots to step up and do what's necessary, as best as you can under the circumstances. Within SaS it seems, there were a lot of pilots who were there just to graze, so to speak. Harvesting belt rats and Sanctums for hours on end they made off with billions of ISK, but when they had to reship to combat fitted vessels and defend their place, many left, soon, without even properly saying goodbye. In short, they were not really committed to SaS. It was both surprising and sobering, to notice how many familiar voices on TS just vanished after a few weeks of hardship..
In LEGIO there was one corp opposed to following the -A- strategy to retreat to Stain and fight from there, and they left LEGIO. Ironically, that corp died pretty soon afterwards as their members couldn't agree on what to do next. Still, as was the case with SaS, not all those who remained with LEGIO followed the redeploy orders; some rarely if ever showed up in Stain. But overall, there was more pilot commitment to remain loyal to LEGIO and fight for our survival.

LEGIO doesn't have the rich, perfect -1.0 space SaS had; perhaps therefore LEGIO didn't attract the uncommitted, profiteering, 'grazing' kind of pilot. And we're better off for it: more commitment, less dead weight.

Your thoughts?
I'm interested to hear your opinions and experiences, too! Have you ever been in a corporation or alliance that failed? Any ideas why?

Eve Online - more eye candy

After losing a Drake to a roaming gang a few minutes ago, I feel the need to present you more eye candy from the Singularity test server.. just to forget the loss ;-) I've made these snapshots on a trip from DSS-EZ (Stain region) to HY-RWO (in Catch), in my somewhat rusty Harbinger battlecruiser. 

(Disclaimer: the snaps were made on a laptop with a severely outdated gpu.. it should look even better on about any other PC)

YHN-3K, where the sun looks shrouded in clouds

DSS-EZ

See more below the fold..

Eve Online - the new nebulas

Of course I'm very interested in the new nebulas, now visible on the Eve Online Singularity testserver. My opinion: New Eden  looks more realistic than it does on Tranquility, with a much darker space and a milky way like band of light. I like it! The nebulas themselves are clearly modeled after the Hubble space telescope pictures such as this one or this, and as such, they are more in line with what a wider audience might expect to find in a scifi universe. Personally I think they need to blend in more: right now they appear as clearly defined bright blobs in an otherwise dark sky. I'd like to see them fade out at the edges, so that you can't really tell where they begin or end.

But other than that: it looks gorgeous. I want the winter expansion - badly. Have a look at the snapshots!

(Disclaimer: the snaps were made on a laptop with a severely outdated gpu.. it should look even better on about any other PC ;-))

Junsoraert, Everyshore (highsec)

The new, clearly unfinished Raven model in Stain (nullsec)

See more below the fold..

Catch me if you can

Ever since the DRF started attacking -A- in Catch, we expected to lose sov and end up exiled somewhere in highsec. Yet -A- hung in there, and so did we; and after the DRF said they had achieved their goals and their attack lost it's vigor, we were able to recoup our lost sov and get back to 'business as usual'.

Although business is still far from usual; it's much better than that! There's still tons of reds and neutrals roaming through our neck of the woods, and there's plenty of opportunity to shoot at them.

And shooting them we did, yesterday! When I logged in, around 21.30 eve time, several corp and alliance mates were fleeted up and looking for trouble, trying to catch the neuts and reds zipping through HY-RWO and it's surroundings. Our scout reports a 12 man gang nearby; it looks promising but a little too much for our kitchensink fleet; their Scimitars would have been hard for us to overcome. But with an -A- gang also nearby, who knows.. What happens next, is some sort of intricate dance. They jump in; we safe up. They leave; we move back to the gate. Scouts report an -A- gang moving in; reds move out; we join forces  with -A-, but finally decide to stay at the gate, in case they try to escape through it. It's like chess, like wild animals circling each other, looking for that weak spot, for that little mistake that will get someone killed. Catch me.. if you can!

After some fifteen minutes of this, our scout suddenly yells out on TS: the -A- gang has finally caught up with the 12 man roam we're shadow boxing with, and the fight was on. Go go go! Scimitar is primary! Go! I feel an adrenaline rush and my heart is beating, we move as quick as possible, eager to score some kills, but to no avail. As soon as you hear the scout change his language to past tense, you know you're too late! -A- had done a proper job: the enemy gang was decimated before most of us landed on grid. Good job for -A- and some of us actually got in on a killmail, but most of us missed out. GF's all around in local.

So we moved back to square one, camping the gates near HY-RWO.. and what do you know. Our scout reports a lone Vigilant on the other side of the gate! Will he...? Quickly our bubble is up and yes, there he is! We lock him, drones are unleashed, the FC asks for webs, our loudmouth Dutch pilot yells to 'BUMP, bump the f&cker away from gate'.. We get him in deep armor... come on, come on.. almost there, almost there.. and then he's gone, jumped back through the gate. Crap! Of course all of us had engaged him so we couldn't pursue. And  then, suddenly, the scout yells out on TeamSpeak: RED SPIKE, safe up safe up!

Immediately we switch back from 'post fight relaxing' to 'get out asap' mode: we align to safes, to station, away from gate while the scout urges us to get the heck away. I am still en route to my safe spot, when one of our pilots says ON ME! ON ME! He's at the V-3 station where, unexplicably, a lonely red Abaddon hangs idly in space. We lock, we shoot.. no response. He must be dc'd, AFK or something like that. We expect him to dock any minute, but his ship and pod are killed without him ever moving. According to his eve-kill stats, this pilot had 15 losses for 117 kills.. this one must have hurt.Oh and that red spike? They moved out via another gate, we never saw them.

By this time it's 01.00 AM and I am as tired as a newt, so I dock up and say goodbye. My mates haven't had enough, yet, and in the following our they manage to score a few more kills: a Purifier and a Rapier. Both pilots are podded too.

All in all we had a great night. This is where Eve Online really shines. This is what I come back for!

Eve blog banter 29: I was there! With them!

Today I received an email from Freebooted's Seismic Stan, regarding the next Blog Banter topic:

"EVE Online is renowned for its depth. Its backstory, gameplay and social aspects are all qualities that draw players in. What does immersion in EVE Online mean to you?"

A subject near and dear to my heart, as it was immersion that originally drew me to virtual worlds. After a while though I needed something with more action, a virtual world with game elements, preferrably scifi themed - and via a banner ad I found Eve Online. 


Alien indeed
As an experienced virtual world inhabitant, though, Eve Online proved to be a much more alien environment than I expected. I did not customize my 'avatar' during account creation, because I assumed I could tweak him later.. this turned out to be false, as the original avatar had no function whatsoever. It was utterly meaningless, and definitely not 'me'. Upon logging in for the first time I found myself in something called a 'Velator', in a large cavernous space, in a system called Bourynes.. again, no avatar in sight, no human figure anywhere. In Eve Online, "you" is the ship you pilot. This is a steep barrier to achieving any kind of immersion, at least as we know it in other virtual worlds. At that time I knew several people who crossed over from Second Life to Eve Online, and I heard a lot of complaints about this issue. 


Incarna
Of course this is all changing, now that Incarna is slowly unfolding in New Eden. For all it's faults and issues, the basic idea of Incarna still appeals to me, for pretty much the same reasons mentioned by The Mittani. If (ever) properly implemented, Incarna should provide the fundamentals for a full fledged virtual world simulator, both in and out of station, with a much higher level of immersion. I still want to sit at the window of a space bar near a busy undock ramp! And after reading Hillmar's devblog, I think I can say we will see that - one day. 

Incarna in a ship, a pos..
Taking it one step further: I would love to be able to walk through my ship as well. They are supposed to be anywhere from a few dozen meters up to several kilometers long, staffed with dozens or even hundreds of people. Wouldn't you like to have a look at the interior? Even if it's only a captain's bridge? Or, housing modules for a POS, again with windows?

Currently I don't think CCP can pull stuff like this off, given their trouble with getting the basics of Incarna right, and the immediate need to appease the 'Flying in Space' related wishes of their subscriber base, but it sure would enhance immersion. It would also appeal to the Star Trek fans, probably.  

My wife, immersed

I was there! With them!
Obviously, the lack of basic immersion didn´t drive me away from Eve Online. What kept me subscribed, was two things: emotional and social immersion. The emotional immersion is, in my opinion, caused by the sandbox nature of New Eden. There's always the risk of something unexpected, always the chance for an adrenaline rush, exhilaration, joy, raw anger and disappointment, great achievements and monumental losses.. See this forum post for a telling example. 

The second one, social immersion, happens when you find a nice corp and some good people to fly with. They become friends; some of my current corpies I have known for years, I know of their personal situations, I trust them. 

The emotional and social immersion of Eve Online: I was there, with them!

Why remove local in nullsec?

It's that special time again: Eve Online's pilots are speculating on what might happen to their beloved game, after CCP Zulu posted a short and cryptic devblog earlier today. Currently, these speculations tend to revolve around a few important issues, with the coming nerf of the (currently overpowered) supercapital ship class and the redesign of nullsec space featuring most prominently.

Something else that's frequently mentioned, usually as part of the nullsec redesign, is that nullsec space should not have a local channel. For those unaware of Eve Online's workings: the local channel is essentially a chat channel, showing you who's in the same solar system as you. When you're flying through nullsec, you'd be wise to keep an eye on said channel. Being aware of enemies or neutrals in your area of space can be a real lifesaver!

Until Apocrypha, all solar systems in New Eden had a local channel. But the wormhole systems that where added with Apocrypha, did not. The lack of local intel means it's much more dangerous to live in wormhole space, as anyone could descend on you, guns ablaze, without any prior warning whatsoever.

Of course, there's ways to work around this limitation, but only partially, by using the directional scanner or scan probes. But those either give you incomplete information or are cumbersome to use, and not easy to combine with belt ratting or running anomalies. As such, for pilots involved in these PVE activities, removing the local channel is a major loss of available intel.

Earlier this year, nullsec PVE got nerfed: from that moment on, the occurrence of the most lucrative anomalies/complexes is limited to only those systems with the worst security rating available: -0.9 or -1 truesec. The rest of nullsec has to make do with less valuable targets to pursue, and many pilots have since moved back to highsec where level 4 missions bring in copious amounts of ISK in exchange for very little risk. So, nullsec has become less rewarding, and many systems are really quiet these days.

Would removing the local channel fix this? I don't think so. PVE in nullsec would become even more risky, and may not be worth the hassle anymore unless you happen to live in one of those rare systems with that low truesec of -0.9 or -1. Some regions don't even have those!

Cloaked ships can't even be scanned down, and their pilots already have a huge advantage over regular pilots, even when they go AFK for hours on end: there's no way to track them down, they are essentially invulnerable. But, at least you know they're there! Now take away local, and the picture gets even worse: there's  no warning whatsoever of their existence anymore. A cloaked stealth bomber could be near you, and there would be no way for you to find out, until he bombs you into oblivion. Not exactly 'leveling the playing field' if you ask me, especially when you keep in mind  that most regular PVE areas (complexes, anomalies, asteroid belts) in Eve Online are easily scanned down or otherwise easily available and accessible to anyone.

Removing local, without providing viable alternative ways of protection for (solo) PVE pilots, and/or increasing incentive for PVE pilots to remain in nullsec, would turn even more of the available space into deserted wastelands. I'd hate to see that happen!

Sleepers, awake!

When the Apocrypha expansion hit Eve Online, lots of us eagerly jumped into the nearest wormhole to start exploring. And many of us overenthusiastic pilots lost their ship, either because we were unable to find our way back out of the wormhole, or because we got killled en masse by the Sleepers, the mysterious guardians of old Jove complexes in wormhole space. 

When you're used to the regular NPC enemies in Eve Online - the belt/mission rats - Sleepers can be a nasty surprise. Their AI is more advanced, they are less predictable, making them harder to beat.

As it stands now, regular PVE in Eve Online highsec could use a bit of spicing up, and last night I wondered: perhaps it's time for the Sleepers to aggressively respond to the ongoing infiltration of wormhole space. Let them come out of their hiding, let them infiltrate regular space, let them get some revenge! Eve pilots can enter and exit wormholes.. why couldn't Sleepers do the same? If a wormhole spawns somewhere, Sleepers could appear from the wormhole and spread throughout the system, infecting belts or complexes, harassing pilots near gates or stations, perhaps even invading deadspace mission areas.

The nice thing about this is that it would create a level of uncertainty for (PVE) pilots. When you go out ratting or on a mission,  you (should!) know what NPC rats to expect: each system in Eve Online has only one documented and well known type of belt rats. In missions, the type of mission rats is predictable as well, with their logo featuring on the mission description, and more explicit descriptions available on sites such as eve-survival. With this knowledge, you can fit your ship accordingly, with optimal resistance against the types of damage those specific rats do, and the appropriate ammunition that is known to be most effective against them. But if you encounter a Sleeper instead of a regular rat, things change. Sleepers do all known damage types, and therefore require a different ship fitting, and perhaps you'd need other weaponry or ammunition too. And given that wormholes come and go, seemingly without a pattern, you never know when or where you might encounter the Sleepers spawning from them.. Suddenly, the same ol' fitting for the same ol' belt ratting may not be cutting it anymore.. A lot of uncertainty would be injected into a now essentially stagnant area of Eve Online.

As for the Eve Online story line, this 'revenge of the Sleepers' could set the stage for a greater role for the Jovian race in New Eden. Eventually it could even lead to a full blown Jovian themed "Apocrypha II" expansion, featuring Jovian incursions via wormholes, or the opening of (parts of?) Jovian space to Eve Online pilots for instance.

An added bonus.. the spawning of less predictable Sleeper AI in PVE areas of Eve Online might be an extra hurdle for the botters out there, as their programs would have to take into account a much less predictable environment than today.

(blog entry banged out in response to this Kirith Kodachi blog entry)